C. Palov - Templar's Code

“Oh, I get it, like Hebrew.” She made the necessary course correction. “Okay, I come up with ‘Ralegh Beauséant Swine Court.’ Which doesn’t tell me a whole heck of a lot.”

“It’s pronounced rawley not raleff,” he informed her, now broadly grinning. “As in Sir Walter Ralegh, the Elizabethan sea captain and famed explorer.”

“I always thought his name was spelled with an i . At least that’s how the city in North Carolina is spelled.”

“Be that as it may, Sir Walter spelled his surname without the i .”

“Wait a minute. Are you saying that this message was written by Walter Ralegh?”

“Possibly,” Caedmon hedged. For several seconds he stared at the deciphered message before saying, “It could well be that Ralegh left the charcoaled message to inform anyone who might follow in his footsteps that he discovered the Templar sanctuary and that he was homeward bound. In those days, safe passage across the Atlantic was in no way guaranteed. An armed Spanish galleon or a turbulent storm at sea could have sent Sir Walter and his wooden ship to the bottom of the ocean.”

“So you think he left the message just in case he didn’t make it back to England.”

“Precisely. But let’s put that aside for the moment.” He tapped the Templar battle standard with the pencil tip. “I suspect that the Beauséant is a pictogram that refers to the Templars’ ‘glorious’ relic.”

“Which we presume was kept in the niche inside the sanctuary.”

“That is the working assumption.” He next tapped the last line in the communiqué. “Now this business about the ‘swine’s court’ . . . admittedly, I’m baffled.”

Edie stared at the nonsensical phrase. “Guess it has something to do with pigs.”

Caedmon suddenly slapped his palm against the granite slab. “Oh, for bollocky’s sake! Swine refers to Bacon.”

“Only after you cook it.”

“No, I mean Sir Francis Bacon, the sixteenth-century English philosopher. Elizabethan history has never been my strong suit, but as I recall, Bacon, Ralegh, and Dee all ran in the same circle, bound by their shared interest in hermetic philosophy and the occult sciences.”

“The occult sciences being something of an oxymoron, right?”

“To the learned and enlightened men of Elizabeth’s court, occult science, or alchemy, was the first of the sciences. And, curiously enough, the Knights Templar also had an interest in alchemy, having been exposed to it in the course of their dealings with the Sephardic Jews.” Evidently realizing that he was rambling, he selfdeprecatingly smiled. “But I digress.” Pencil still in hand, he underlined the last line of the translated message. “Bacon’s court can only refer to one place: Gray’s Inn.”

“Sorry, but I’m drawing a big fat blank.”

Caedmon crossed his booted feet at the ankle, once more leaning back on his elbows. “Located in London, Gray’s Inn is a professional association for barristers. There are four of these inns, the other three being the Middle Temple, the Inner Temple, and Lincoln’s Inn. During the Elizabethan period, the inns were boarding houses and social clubs all rolled into one. Sir Francis maintained lodging at Gray’s Inn.”

“So then it’s possible that Walter Ralegh took whatever it was that he found in the Templar sanctuary to Gray’s Inn, whereupon he turned it over to Francis Bacon.”

“According to the Enochian communiqué, that’s what Ralegh intended to do. We have no way of knowing if he followed through.” Reaching for a water bottle, he twisted the cap and offered the opened bottle to her.

Edie waved it off. “Perhaps at this juncture I should point out that there’s a lot we don’t know. Particularly since we have no clue as to what this ‘glorious’ relic is. Even if we did know what we’re looking for, we have no idea where to look for it. And, news flash, Sir Walter and Sir Francis died centuries ago.”

“At which time the Templars’ relic was bequeathed to someone. No doubt, someone in that same circle of men.” Seemingly unperturbed, Caedmon took a swig of water.

“Oh, yeah, a completely unknown ‘someone’ should be easy to track down.” Shaking her head, Edie rolled her eyes.

“There’s no need for sarcasm.”

“Hey, one person’s sarcasm is another person’s reality check,” she countered. “In my humble opinion, we just smashed headlong into a concrete barrier.”

CHAPTER 35

Mercurius heavily sighed. “It must be done.”

“You have my word.”

Communiqué ended, Saviour turned his attention to the pair lounging on the stone slab beside the river. His mentor had been displeased to learn that the Brit and his woman emerged from the cave empty-handed. It meant that there was nothing in the cave to retrieve. Whatever treasure had once been safeguarded in the subterranean hideaway had already been confiscated. That being the case, Saviour now had to ensure that no one ever learned of the cave’s existence.

Unzipping his canvas carrying case, he first removed a leather quiver that contained two dozen wooden arrows. Unlike an aluminum or fiberglass arrow, a cedar shaft had its own unique personality. The wood grain gave each arrow its own feel. Its own smell.

He fingered several arrows, gauging the spines of each, the stiffness of the arrow determining its flight distance. He settled on a wooden arrow with blue feather fletching. The color of the Aegean Sea in the early morning light.

On Panos Island he used to feign interest as Evangelos droned on about shear drag, kinetic energy, and the laws of physics. When it came to archery, Saviour knew that only one thing mattered—hit the target.

And he was very good at that.

Smiling, he lightly touched the steel tip of the selected arrow. “This will hurt you a great deal, Englishman,” he softly whispered.

Before it kills you.

CHAPTER 36

“The car may be dented, but the engine still runs,” Caedmon informed Edie, refusing to acknowledge that they’d hit a roadblock. After all the years of study, this was the closest he’d ever come to deciphering the mystery of the Knights Templar.

Monks. Warriors. Mystics. New World colonists. It was fast becoming a heady brew.

Of one thing he was certain: Sir Walter Ralegh not only discovered the subterranean sanctuary, but he removed something from it. Meaning Ralegh succeeded where Giovanni da Verrazano failed. Although the unwitting Verrazano most likely led the swashbuckling Englishman to the prize, the Italian sea captain having mentioned the Newport stone tower in his ship’s log. Enough of a clue for Ralegh, Bacon, and Dee to put the pieces of the Templar puzzle together. After all, it’d been known for centuries that a large contingent of knights managed to elude the Inquisition, escaping by sea. But until the sixteenth century, nobody knew where they’d escaped to.

Now that he knew the where, Caedmon was determined to find out what precisely Ralegh found in the Templar sanctuary. Once he knew what he was looking for, he could then begin the hunt in earnest.

“May I borrow your laptop?”

“Be my guest.” Edie popped out the memory chip before handing over her two-pound dynamo. Reaching into her field kit, she removed a resealable plastic bag. “Mind filling me in?”

“Not in the least. I’m checking for the next available flight to London. I believe there’s an airport at Providence. Even with the translated Ralegh communiqué, I’m still very much in the starting blocks.”